Daily Mail merges foreign desk with online and looks to integrate sport across seven days

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The Daily Mail is merging its foreign desk with Mail Online and looking to integrate sport across the Daily Mail, Mail On Sunday and online.

So far the Mail titles have retained distinct daily, Sunday and online operations.

On the foreign desk, two casual staff and an administrator have been let go and foreign editor Anthony Harwood now works with the Mail Online team.

Press Gazette understands that he still presents a foreign news list for the Daily Mail print edition news conference each day but that his work is increasingly involved in the online side of the operation.

This reflects the fact that Mail Online has become a global operation with offices in India, USA and Australia.

According to one source there has also been a cut in the Daily Mail’s budget for foreign contributors.

Daily Mail head of sport Lee Clayton is in charge of the new integrated sport operation with Daily Mail sports editor Les Snowdon and Mail on Sunday sports editor Alison Kervin underneath him.

It is expected that the moves in sport will lead to some streamlining of the operation. But this comes after a period of massive editorial expansion for the Mail titles.

According to one Daily Mail source, the title has recruited more than 300 journalists over the last five years as it has ramped up the digital operation.

The changes to the sport team are understood to be also intended to reflect the increasingly global nature of the operation – with Mail Online now providing in depth coverage of sport in the US and Australia as well as the UK.

Dacre – who is also editor in chief of Metro, Mail Online and the Mail on Sunday – has been Daily Mail editor since 1992. Now aged 65, his contract was extended for 12 months at the end of last year. There is no indication as yet that he has any plans to step down.

In February Mail Online attracted an average of 11.2m global ‘daily browsers’ per day to its website versus an average paid for print circulation for the Daily Mail of 1.7m.

Meanwhile, last month plans were announced to merge the website of free daily Metro with Mail Online.